Seattle Information Technology

Archives for January 4, 2013

Anonymous hackers have released a statement threatening to shut down the website of California’s Manteca Police Department after a video of a police officer shooting a man 11 times was published on the Internet. In June 2011, Manteca Officer John Moody shot parolee Ernesto Duenez Jr after reporting that he was allegedly holding a knife. After the district attorney’s office concluded that Moody’s actions were justified, a video of the shooting was released, prompting Anonymous hacktivists to release a statement threatening: “Manteca police department, we demand as a final resort that you disband your corrupted Officer John Moody and serve justice for his despicable act of violence.” If the demands are not met, they threaten to shut down the police department’s website.

Microsoft on Saturday confirmed that Internet Explorer (IE) 6, 7 and 8 contain an unpatched bug — or “zero-day” vulnerability — that is being used by attackers to hijack victims’ Windows computers. The company is “working around the clock” on a patch, its engineers said. They have also released a preliminary workaround that will protect affected IE customers until the update is ready. In a security advisory issued Dec. 29, Microsoft acknowledged that attacks are taking place. “Microsoft is aware of targeted attacks that attempt to exploit this vulnerability through Internet Explorer 8,” the alert stated. Newer versions of IE, including 2011’s IE9 and this year’s IE10, are not affected, Microsoft said. It urged those able to upgrade to do so. According to multiple security firms, the vulnerability was used by hackers to exploit Windows PCs whose owners visited the website of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a non-partisan foreign policy think tank with offices in New York and Washington, D.C.
Source: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/123012-microsoft-confirms-zero-day-bug-in-265412.html?source=nww_rss

The Senate today rejected the inclusion of four privacy-friendly amendments before voting to reauthorize the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that grants the federal government the authority to clandestinely monitor electronic communications involving foreign citizens coming into or out of the United States without the probable cause required for traditional warrants. In an article published on the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s DeepLinks Blog yesterday, EFF activist Trevor Timm celebrated the fact that the Senate was, in the end, forced to openly debate the FISA amendments, a debate that Timm claims, some in the senior legislative house tried to avoid having. Timm wrote that any Senator seeking to stay true to the constitution should vote no on the reauthorization, but in the end, the Senate not only reauthorized FISA but voted to reject the four, amendments endorsed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the EFF. FISA became law in 1978 and is intended to regulate how the government can collect “foreign intelligence information.” The bill was last authorized in 2008 and has since been at the center of a number of lawsuits. The bill’s proponents advocate it as an important tool in the U.S.’s ongoing war on terror.
Source: http://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/senate-reauthorizes-fisa-rejects-proposed-privacy-amendments-122812